Many manufacturing processes have become fully automated resulting in high production volumes. However, this is not the case for inspection. Rapid advances in machine tool technology have resulted in fast processing Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines that are capable of manufacturing parts at high speeds, turning their manual inspection process into a bottleneck.
Inspection is necessary as the CNC machines may skip particular machine instructions, either as a result of an operator override mechanism or due to an automated checking mechanism that instructs the machine not to proceed with the given instruction. There is also the possibility that the machine may mishandle a particular machine instruction due to a fault in one or more of the CNC machine components.
Increasing levels of automation in manufacturing industry have not yet led to similar levels of automation in the inspection of intermediate and finished products. Therefore, it is a continuous challenge for Inspection Engineers to cope with the pace of high speed automatic CNC machines, to ensure inspection quality in comparable time frames. One solution has been the use of highly automated machines to carry out inspection such as robots, scanning or artificial visionary devices, but this is an expensive solution which is not always practical.